bupkis, bupkus, bupkiss » buttkiss

“WHile I don’t know buttkiss about STREEM speakers, and they seem like they’re trying
to overwhelm buyers with size and specs…” (link)

“WEAVER as someone related to the project why don’t you just
shut up…..mentioning names is out of line, you don’t know buttkiss about the …” (link)

“Younger
sports fans don’t know buttkiss…” (from Stocklin)

Analyzed or reported by:

Rex Stocklin
(American Dialect Society mailing list, 15 May 2005)

Only two examples from a Google web search, both given above — these against ca. 117 examples of spellings with the correct “p” from Yiddish (ca. 74 of them for “bupkis”).

A reshaping as “don’t know buttkiss” would fit into the collection of negative idioms “don’t know (doodly) squat”, “don’t know shit”, and the like. But such a small number of examples isn’t a lot to go on, so I’ve marked this one as “questionable”.

Commentaries

Throughout my life uneducated Englishmen have referred to “nougat” (a French word pronounced “noogar”) as “nugget”.

As an Englishman I had never seen the word “Buttkiss” before. However, my immediate reaction was to assume that it is a corruption of the Yiddish word “bubkes” (sometimes spelled as “bopkes”) which has exactly the same meaning.

I suppose it’s my fault for not making it absolutely 100% clear that I understood that Yiddish was the source here. Now, as to how the Yiddish original is to be spelled in English — bobkes, bobkas, bubkes, bupkes, bupkas, bupkis, pupkas, bupkiss, etc. etc. — I make no claim, not even any claim that there’s one right spelling (why should I want to claim that?). All I’m suggesting is that some English speakers (ignorant of Yiddish, no doubt) have re-shaped the word into butt + kiss. That’s the eggcorn leap.